Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective from the 19th and early 20th century. He was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a Scottish author and physician. Holmes was a problem solver who would solve a case using logic and astute observation. There were four novels and fifty six short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr John H Watson. The stories first appeared in magazine serialization over a period of over forty years. 221b Baker Street is the address that Holmes and Watson kept during the time of the novels. The 1st floor study overlooking Baker Street in London is now a museum dedicated to Holmes. Last year saw the 125th Anniversary of the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes in the mystery “A Study in Scarlet” and was celebrated worldwide.

Simon Templar (The Saint)

This was a long running series of books by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. The detective is known as The Saint because of his initials ST. He often goes under different names that use ST as the initials including the most popular Sebastian Tombs and Sullivan Titwillow. He has a calling card that he sometimes leaves at the scenes of his crimes which is a drawing of a stick man with a halo. The books often allude to the suggestion that Templar started his career as a criminal and it is also suggested that he is a Robin Hood. In 1962 Roger Moore was cast as Simon Templar in a TV adaptation of The Saint and it is said that he developed his suave quipping style which he carried forward to his James Bond character.

Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files)

Jim Rockford was a television character from the series The Rockford Files. He was a former convict who had been falsely imprisoned. He lives on a trailer near the beach and has plenty of friends and a good relationship with his father Rocky. There are two books by author Stuart Kaminsky “The Green Bottle” and “The Devil on My Doorstep”. The TV show would famously start with the answer phone message by James Garner’s character “This is Jim Rockford. At the tone, leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you”.

Magnum, P.I.

Magnum was an American television show that followed Thomas Magnum (Tom Selleck) the private investigator living in Hawaii. The show was aired for eight seasons from 1980 to 1988. He was a former Navy SEAL and Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) officer. He lives in the guest house of a posh beachfront estate called Robin’s Nest on the island of Oahu which was at the invitation of its celebrity owner. The celebrities face is never seen but he keeps Magnum busy looking into the quality control of the estates security.

Inspector Jacques Clouseau

Inspector Jacques Clouseau is a bumbling fictional French detective from the Pink Panther series of films in which Peter Sellers played him in the first. He has been played by many actors including Alan Arkin, Steve Martin and surprisingly Roger Moore.

Charlie Hodgson is a private detective who has been working alongside private detective Liverpool. Charlie is a big fan of fictional private detectives and investigators especially Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. To real more articles like this visit http://www.privatedetective-liverpool.co.uk

This weekend I got to see the preview of “Warm Bodies” at one of the Award Preview Screenings held at the Directors Guild of America. It’s partly a family perk having a husband who works in the Film Industry, and partly his duty to review the technical content of all films gaining theatrical release. Warm Bodies is a novel by author Isaac Marion. The book was described as a “zombie romance” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
Now we often receive preview screeners from the studios for all of the major releases, but not so much for those films that are low budget straight to distribution.

Why the DGA Protects the Art of Film

You see, each of the Guilds of America protect the art they’ve so keenly developed and challenged over decades. Whether it’s acting, screenwriting, directing or producing, the guilds are a Unionised way of looking after the film arts. Films that achieve the budget to go to theatrical release will end up being reviewed by the committee of members. For those films that don’t get the print and advertising budget (P&A) to get a major theatrical release, the studios have deemed that the box office attraction will unlikely reap back the costs of P&A.
So the studios submit to the Guilds all the films that they want considered for awards. A film that is deemed of low market value to reap back box office costs, may be technically brilliant, but a good story or picture is not enough in itself to win awards.

Why Horror Rarely Wins Awards

Rarely then, do I get to see a preview screener of a horror film. Usually they are straight to distribution release. Often they fall in the low budget category, and because minimum investment has been made on the production value, it stands to reason that there is less technical style and skill involved to determine the attention of Guild Nominations.
Being a horror fan I leapt at the chance to see Warm Bodies. A horror film preview screener? Wow, that’s not been common lately. No doubt Guillermo del Torro’s latest release MaMa will also get the privalidge.

Down to the Review

At first I thought they were going to take the direction that ‘R’ the zombie character whose story we are listening to; was going to be the only zombie affected by an unusual change. I was pleasantly surprised at the U-turn the story took.
And it played cleverly on so many levels. This a film was technically good on many levels, the acting, camera work, lighting, script, etc, and it was an actual relief from most horror films where I put up with disconcerting camera movements and crappy scripts just because of the need for a horror flick.

Corporate Oligarch We Live In

The reason why it was clever: It was communicating about many things, not just the idea of a ‘cure’ but that in a corporate sense we are ignorant of many things. We alienate things outside our oligarch. We victimize ourselves in order to define the protection we need from the outside world.
Here, in this film, I could see takes related to xenophobic racism being cured by education. They cleverly chose to avoid the topic of religion and not bring that into it at all. Aspects of religion would have made the film less impactful. I actually felt choked most of the way through rooting for the struggling zomby – relating to what many people can personally overcome. These points would have been belittled with any introduction of religious symbolism.

A Fight For Tolerance

Of course you can say that organized religion, in the church or whatever your belief system could have been another parallel in the story. But the film was not seeking to find fault with beliefs systems, more so the notion that we can be cured by education and tolerance. Which is the philosophy behind many religions anyway.
There were beautiful points in the film of walls crumbling, not only was this symbolic, but a stark reminder that walls in our society still exist today.
I hope this film does get some awards for it’s combination of clever scripting, deeper than the usual horror story. This is the kind of storytelling that the Film Guilds of America strive to preserve.

@JulianaReedLA on Twitter is actively involved in script development and assisting those with screenplays ready to commit to film with introductions to accredited colleagues in the film industry. If you are looking for guidance, and new to filmmaking, please reach out to her on Google Plus where she’ll be happy to help.

Lotteries aside, there have been some rather large prize awards from promotions. You may think of a casino giving away a car or a charity raffling a house, but what are some of the largest competitions and promotions in history? We focus on the business world and the cost of some of the promotions and competitions ever held in an attempt to earn your business.

Expedia And Facebook:

Of course you knew that Facebook had to be brought into the mix. The largest promotion in the history of Facebook and social media for that matter was conducted by Expedia. They held the Expedia Friend Trips Game. It was held as a sweepstakes with the winners creating a virtual plan that they then point to a vacation destination that they can take up to 5 friends to. Also the largest promotion in the history of Expedia, some of the trips were valued at over $100,000 each. An expensive way to earn your business.

Play For A Billion:

Instead of a Harrier Jet, Pepsi decided to partner with ABC Television Network for the largest promotion in television history. Hosted by Damon Wayans, one person was selected for a chance to win $1Million on national television. They were then offered a chance to play for $1Billion. The winners took the $1Million guaranteed money as opposed to playing for the billion. However, this did not stop Pepsi from contracting with Berkshire Hathaway for an insurance policy to cover the $1Billion had someone won. A promotion that Pepsi obviously could not afford.

Supercar Or $150,000 Cash:

In 2012, award winning financial service provider IronFX launched a Supercar or $150,000 Cash competition. This was unlike any other type of live competition in fx trading history. They held a $30,000 demo competition earlier in the year but topped it off with this one by awarding someone 5 times their original challenge winner received. Prior to this, there have been few trading challenges that have come even close. In fact, even The Forex Championship competition only gives out $20,000, and that is for an entire season of trading.

McDonald’s Monopoly:

Couldn’t just leave on McDonald’s and the largest ongoing promotion in restaurant history. Launched in 1987, McDonald’s Monopoly promotion pays out $1Million per competition as a grand prize. The history of the promotion is filled with fraud and funny stories, but you have to admit that they get their money’s worth. This promotion needs little explanation as it is known world-wide, being offered in countries such as the United States, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, France, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore, Austria, Poland and Switzerland. This is one of the longest running promotions for a fast food chain and is one that will not be topped any time soon.

Crystal Chance is a marketing major at the University of South Carolina. As part of a current class project, she has authored a series of short articles about different promotions throughout history and their effects on company’s bottom lines. She has published numerous articles on the topic with different online websites.

Facts about Digital Book Printing

With the rise of the e-reader, it is now possible to carry hundreds or even thousands of books all packed in a device that is smaller than the size of one book. This fact, combined with the relatively low price of digital books ($9.99 or less for many Kindle titles) is making the digital book even more appealing than paper books for many readers.

Authors are taking notice, and a flurry of digital books (or “eBooks”) have been published in the last few years. It is not uncommon for a first-time author to release their book in digital-only form. Many used to do this by simply publishing the content as a .pdf file on their own and selling it as downloadable content from their website. Some still do this today.

But as the Amazon Kindle grew to dominate the e-reader market, authors could see that having a Kindle version of their eBook book available for sale was necessary to compete in the larger marketplace. (The Kindle reader could not read regular .pdf’s.) The self-publisher could easily make use of Amazon’s “Kindle Direct Publishing” or KDP interface, a dashboard allowing users to publish as many titles to the Kindle store on Amazon as they wished, and all for free.

Publishing a Kindle Book

To publish via the Amazon KDP interface, one needs a finished manuscript, a JPG cover image, a concise book description and pricing info. The preferred format for upload for the manuscript is Microsoft Word, but it also does a pretty good job with converting .pdf files into a readable Kindle format.

As for pricing, Amazon grants a hefty 70% royalty to authors on all titles priced between $2.99 and $9.99. This is presumably because they have found this price range to be most desirable to buyers, and they can all but guarantee that the Kindle version will be priced lower than the print version, making the Kindle option very appealing to buyers.

Pricing a Digital Book

For books priced either below $2.99 or above $9.99, the royalty drops to 30%, so it’s clear that it’s in the author’s best interest to go for the 70% royalty option. Because of this, a great number of Kindle books, even newly released, are priced at $9.99.

Digital book printing also allows authors to play around with the length and format of books. With free and simple digital printing, they can publish without the financial and time risk that traditional book publishing has entailed. Some authors choose to publish shorter books or “reports” and price them for 99 cents. Some authors even make their titles free, as a marketing tool.

Of course, if you publish a .pdf and sell it yourself via your own website, whatever you charge for the book will be pure profit for you. However, unless you’re already very well known, your website likely won’t have the marketing klout of the juggernaut that is Amazon.

Digital book printing is definitely the way of the future, and because of it, anyone can try their hand at publishing. It’s been said that “everyone has a book in them.” With digital book printing, it’s now easier than ever to give your books the chance for an audience.

This article was written by Alessandra Macaluso.  Alessandra is an Author, Blogger, Writer and DIY addict who loves to share lifestyle tips and recipes on her personal blog.

They say that the greatest rewards cannot be earned without great risk. Many people take big risks on the road to success, only to fail miserably. But nothing ventured is nothing gained. Some of those people who initially fail are discouraged and never try again. Others pick themselves up and turn their biggest failures into their biggest successes. Here are some great stories of success that came from failure.

J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling is the author of the Harry Potter series, which is one of the best-selling series of all time. The first of the incredibly popular books was written by Rowling while she was working as a waitress. Making so little, she was on public assistance. She scribbled the ideas for the first book on a napkin, and later turned them into a manuscript that was rejected by at least 12 publishers. It was finally published when the 8-year-old daughter of a CEO requested it. Now J.K. Rowling is one of the most successful and richest authors in history.

Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss, real name Theodor Seuss Geisel, is perhaps the most iconic children’s author of all time, but it was a long journey. Dr. Seuss frequently doodled and daydreamed, and people thought he was wasting his time with nonsense. In school, he was voted “Least Likely to Succeed.” In college, a professor actually suggested he drop out of the English department and school in general. When he wrote his first published book, I Saw It on Mulberry Street, it was rejected by 27 different publishers. Finally, he got the chance and proved everyone wrong.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musician who began composing at the age of five-years-old. Now, he is one of the best-known composers all over the world. Unfortunately, during his lifetime Mozart experienced many failures and died without fully experiencing his fame. He didn’t have much support, and Emperor Ferdinand criticized his opera as too noisy and with too many notes. He was fired as a court musician in Salzburg. Mozart’s 600 compositions are considered to be some of the finest ever created, even if he failed to convince others of it during his time.

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein’s name is practically synonymous with intelligence and genius. When he was young, however, he was considered anything but. Einstein didn’t speak until he was 4-years-old, and he couldn’t read until he was 7-years-old. He was expelled from school, with teachers calling him “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” His parents thought he was “subnormal,” and he wasn’t accepted into the Zurich Polytechnic School he applied to. In the end, Einstein ended up revolutionizing what we know about modern physics, and he was a recipient of the Nobel Prize, one of the most prestigious honors he could ever hope to earn.

There are thousands more examples of people – famous or not – becoming successful after facing defeat or failure. Stories like these really do remind us that anything is possible.

Josh Reynolds is an online review tracking professional who shares encouragement for those who have failed to continue their pursuit of success.